Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Democracy Inaction

I posted a new song called Democracy Inaction today on myspace.com/markheimonen (also on audiostreet.net/markheimonen) This is a higher-energy song, dealing primarily with the subject of getting money out of politics. Campaign finance reform is a huge issue - it isn't just another buzzword campaign issue - it lies at the heart of democracy.

Money magazine estimate that each American pays $1,600 per year as a result of favors granted to corporations and wealthy people as repayment for campaign contributions (Moyers, Moyers on America, p.96)

One study estimates that it would cost only about $5 per average taxpayer to cover the cost of a publicly

80% of political contributions come from the wealthiest one-quarter of 1 percent of the population (Common Dreams)

In 1980, CEOs were paid on average 40 times the salary of the average worker. By the year 2000, just twenty years later, the average CEO was making an astounding 531 times the salary of the average American worker. Americans are working longer hours, have fewer rights, and are paid less, when adjusted for inflation, than in the 1970s. (Wages in America: The Richer get Richer, and the Rest get Less and CEOs are Overpaid)

The Bush Administration continues to push the neoconservative agenda, which is stripping the average American of rights by the day, and handing out favors to corporate interests. Some examples include the bankruptcy bill, CAFTA, the Clear Skies initiative, the new energy bill , the regressive tax cuts, and Medicaid Reform, which all serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy, while removing or eliminating the rights of American citizens.

Democracy Inaction

I don't want to have to compromiseThe way we run this place no moreCampaign contributions -Politicians selling out like dirty whores

It’s not the way it's meant to be –Democracy's become hypocrisyCorporate interest lobby groupsHave robbed us blind – Why can't you see?

Monday, August 01, 2005

Updated Music (Mass Media and Walk Away)

I uploaded new versions of Mass Media and Walk Away this evening. I ended up adding a bridge and chorus to Mass Media, and the song now feels a lot more complete to me. You can check out both songs at audiostreet.net/markheimonen (alternatively at myspace.com/markheimonen)

In an incredibly strange coincidence, I actually wrote and released the initial version of Mass Media the day before Lawrence O'Donnell broke the Karl Rove story. Considering that the song actually directly mentions the smearing of Joseph Wilson, the timing seemed almost too perfect.

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,but maybe that's just me,could it be..I just don't know

Corporate-sponsored right-wing think tankshanding out their lies they sell as newsWe have a president who doesn't seem to understand or careAbout the consequences of the choices that he makesHe lied about the reason that we went to fight a warAnd yet was somehow reelected in 2004Our media has failed to do its job – the fourth estate –To hold the government accountable for choices that it makes

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,but maybe that's just me,could it be..I just don't know

Whatever happened to accountability, responsibility –Not loyalty, or royalty or fealtyOur government's demanding silence –Look at Newsweek, Wilson, Rather –Silenced by the Neocon attack machineThese patriotic claims are just a game – a plan to silenceTruth enough to keep the public in the dark for one more dayIt's time to stand for truth – demand our media to do its job –To seek the truth, expose the secrets and the lies we're told

The Moral Values label seems a bit misplaced to me,but maybe that's just me,could it be..I just don't know

About

In our modern society, with all it's comfort and convinience, it is far too easy to fall into a pattern of complacency. To borrow a term that was recently brandished by the 9/11 commission, I'd like to label this condition "Societal groupThink".

"Groupthink is a term coined by psychologist Irving Janis in 1972 to describe one process by which a group can make bad or irrational decisions. In a groupthink situation, each member of the group attempts to conform his or her opinions to what they believe to be the consensus of the group. This results in a situation in which the group ultimately agrees on an action which each member might normally consider to be unwise.

Janis' original definition of the term was "a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action." The word groupthink itself was intended to be reminiscent of George Orwell's coinages (such as doublethink and duckspeak) from the fictional language Newspeak, which he portrayed in his ideological novel Nineteen Eighty-Four."

I'd like to challenge you to re-examine your fundemental understanding; to re-think that which you know; to not accept the status-quo.